MAT, Continuum, current dumping, flux capacitors (okay, not the last one) – British hi-fi makers have provided some genius advances in sound
Britain has always been a nation that prides itself on its engineering and science pedigree, which is why it’s no surprise that it has been the birthplace of some of the most interesting innovations in the hi-fi space.
If we were to list every amazing British invention we have experienced reviewing in hi-fi over the past near-50 years of What Hi-Fi?, this article would read more like an encyclopedia of hi-fi know-how. Instead, we are going to focus on the biggies that our team of experts personally list as their hallmarks for British hi-fi innovation.
KEF MAT
KEF’s Metamaterial Absorption Technology (MAT) first appeared in 2020 on the What Hi-Fi? Award-winning KEF LS50 Meta standmount speakers. The MAT technology is designed to help speakers cope with the unwanted sound that comes off the back of an aluminium tweeter dome so they don’t distort the unit’s forward output.
The MAT itself is basically a circular, plastic, maze-like structure that sits behind the tweeter. The specifics of the maze depend on the speaker, but effectively the design means the rearward sound from the tweeter (such as in the LS50 Meta) feeds into this maze element, that is roughly the size of a hockey puck. The element is layered and made up of 30 tubes, each of which has been tuned to absorb a different frequency (from around 600Hz upwards). According to KEF, this MAT technology helps absorb “99 per cent” of the unwanted distorting soundwaves that radiate from the cone’s rear into the cabinet.
Absorbing this rearward-firing energy is one of the key factors in getting a good sound, and most manufacturers attempt to get around the problem by using damping materials behind the driver diaphragm. In our experience, some sound energy always bounces back through the driver to add distortion.
There have been other attempts to get around this issue, but the reason we have flagged KEF MAT in particular here is the innovative way it’s been designed and how well it works. Since we tested the LS50 Meta, we have consistently been impressed with just how well MAT works in the speakers, with our reviewers reporting: “It looks as though the Metamaterial technology really works. These new KEFs sound so much cleaner and more sophisticated than before, particularly at higher frequencies. Large-scale dynamics are handled well and there is a good amount of muscle for a speaker of this siz
